Dallas Winston
by BarrelRacer13
Summary: "The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help. That way, even if you sniffle a little, no one will hear you." -Walter Dean Myers


**I just finished the book for school, and I don't think I will ever hear names as stupid as Sodapop and Ponyboy. -_- My opinion, don't flame me for it. **

**I read a few fanfictions, but all the ones I manage to find about Dallas and have tragedy and angst and stuff, always involve romance between Dallas and Johnny. I can't stand reading that kind of stuff. A whole story about an 18-or-something-year-old making out with a 16-or-something-year-old is WRONG. I believe that Dallas just thought of Johnny as a brother or a son or something. NOT a romance partner. **

**Rant Over. **

**I normally write Percy Jackson and the Olympian fanfictions, and I used to do Invader Zim fanfictions. Don't judge. **

**This is my first Outsiders fan fiction. **

**I'm a lot nicer then I seem. Now because this AN is getting long, I shall move on.**

**I own nothing. **

Dallas Winston, age 15, jail.

It was dark. It was cold. It was all so unfair. He leaned back on the hard stone wall of the jail cell, a black eye forming and his lip swollen and bleeding. A bruise was forming along his jawline and every part of his body ached. He had gotten in another fight with the inmates. Five against one was hardly fair, and he learned it the hard way. No difference though. Dallas Winston always learns the hard way. He doesn't get a break. Not ever. And he most likely never will.

The fight had been over something stupid, of course. It was just a way to show off, see who was the stronger man. Dallas Winston had lost. He would deal with the jeers and laughs until he beat someone else up twice as bad as he was beat up. That's how things went here. Beat someone else up to keep a rank. But that was okay. Because he was Dallas Winston. He could beat up anyone, in a fair fight. One against one. Maybe two against two.

He yawned and rubbed his face. It was at least two in the morning. He was exhausted. He couldn't sleep. He wouldn't sleep. It was dangerous to sleep. It was hard to sleep in a place where you're surrounded by dangerous people. Of course, that wasn't what was keeping him so awake. Hunger was keeping him awake. He had missed dinner because of the fight. And he regretted it. He would have to wait now until tomorrow. He had to pee. The toilet smelled so bad though. Bad enough to chase away the flies. He could smell it from where he was, but not as strongly as it was near it.

The stupid thing was clogged. No one would unclog it. It smelled too bad. He would try to wait until tomorrow, when they let the inmates out for breakfast. He could go then. He hoped he could wait until then. His head hurt too. It was pounding, like he was being beaten with a hammer. His father had done that to him once. When he was ten, and first got arrested, it was because he had tried to steal some other power tool, with the intentions to beat his dad with it. The cops hadn't asked questions about his own bruises though. Why should they? They had probably assumed it was just from a fight.

He yawned again, slowly dozing off. He refused to sleep on the bed. To sleep on the bed was to show they had broken him. But Dallas Winston was about as wild as an untamed colt. He would not be broken easily. He would do every possible thing wrong that he could, until he couldn't take it anymore. He thought about the gang. Did they miss him? Or did they even notice he was arrested again? They probably didn't. He was Dallas Winston. He comes and goes as he pleases, and will sometimes be gone for weeks, either busy with running from the cops, flirting with girls, riding in the rodeo, or taking a break. Sometimes he would just be sick, and not feel like seeing anybody. Those were the days he would stay in a run down, abandoned factory and hope that either the cold would be too much for him and kill him, or that someone would find him, take him in, and treat him like they _care._

Care. A strange word. People had claimed that they care, but what is the actual definition of care? Cleaning someone or something up and sending them away? Nursing them back to health? Pretending to like someone and live with them? None of those were Dallas Winston's definition of care. To him, care meant to take him into their house and help him change. Help him become the right person, help him become who his mom had always dreamed he would be. The perfect man, strong and healthy, a big heart and well educated. Give him a place to call _home_. A place he could feel safe and wanted, and not have to worry about where his next meal was coming from.

He fell asleep. He was restless in his sleep, mumbling and whimpering, tossing and turning. He was woken by his desperate need to relieve himself. He refused still to use the toilet in the cell. He would remain the rebellious, trouble-causing, defiant person he was. He walked to the bars of his cell and looked up and down the hallway, before doing what he had to do. He would smirk when the night guard walked by and stepped in it. He would be innocent too. If there was one thing everyone –including the cops- would agree on, it would be how bad the toilet smelled, and how much worse it would be if it was stirred up. The old night guard used to put a bucket in the cells if anyone needed it badly enough. But he had been killed on duty.

He returned to his place against the wall, and thought about a book he had been forced to read once, when he was younger. "Monster" it was called. Walter Dean Myers had written in. He could still recall the first lines, and he knew how true it was. "_The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help. That way, even if you sniffle a little, no one will hear you. If anybody knows that you are crying, they'll start to talk about it, and soon it'll be your turn to be beaten up when the lights go out." _

The truth behind those words was scary. He'd seen it happen. One time, after a beaten and a horrible day of a head cold in jail, he had carved it into a mirror. No one had seen him do it. He was never caught, but he saw the comments written about it underneath and heard the sneers. But they all knew it was true. If you were going to cry in jail, it had to be at night, when someone is screaming for help. Dallas Winston had never cried. Not since he was little, and was beaten with a hammer. When he was scared, he didn't cry. When he was sick, he didn't cry. When he was upset or hurt, he didn't cry. Crying was showing weakness. And there's no room for weakness in Dallas Winston's life.

The next day, he was exhausted. He hadn't slept much. He didn't smirk when the guard found the little present Dallas had left him, and he hadn't smirked when he got punished for it. No food until lunch. It wasn't fair. He got so hungry that he felt like he was going to barf. When they did allow him to eat, he did barf. The whole first half of his meal came back up, and when his stomach calmed down enough for the rest of the food, it had already been taken away. He would have to wait for dinner. He was able to hold dinner down for several hours, but around midnight that night, it all came back up. And he still didn't stop puking.

The next day after that, he was barely able to stand. His stomach hurt. There was nothing left to puke up. His head hurt. His body still ached. Dallas Winston had been reduced to a groaning teen, in too much pain to move. No one did anything about it. They let him suffer until it got the point where he couldn't move. He was lying on the floor in his own pools of vomit, half asleep. They took him out of the cell, and tried to "help" him. They gave him stuff for stomach flu, but he couldn't keep it down. Same with every medicine they tried. By day five, they had no choice but to bring him to the hospital. They didn't use hand cuffs. He was too weak to fight back.

He almost died that night. Only one nurse noticed, and that one nurse was his mother. She didn't care like she used to, but that small flicker of hope stayed with her, and she tried to help him. He didn't recognize her. She was glad. It had been from then on that Dallas Winston had been forced to take medication daily for a few weeks.

He felt like he useless after that. He was too weak to do anything. He was barely able to walk from the bathrooms to his cell. The doctors had demanded that Dallas Winston is not forced to use the smelly toilet in the cell. But that was all that changed. Dallas Winston still slept on the floor, and when he was released, he still slept in the abandoned factory. He sold the remainder of the pills to drug addicts, only be arrested again for being caught.

Dallas Winston, 35 years old, a small apartment

He was married now. He told his children of his foolish behavior, of the trouble he would get in, and how bad and horrible his childhood had been. He watched his children grow up, how they coped when their mother died of cancer, and how they interacted with others. They had the childhood that Dallas Winston never had. They had the chances and the paths that Dallas Winston had to choose from at one time. But they chose the right one from the beginning, unlike Dallas Winston.

**I know, Dallas dies at the end of The Outsiders, but I like Dallas Winston, so he does not die. Yet. If I ever decide to make another Outsiders fanfiction, I can almost guarantee I'll have Dallas die in some horrible way. **

**Love hurts.**

**Review please! **


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